


Like A Lover Undone

by noblealice



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Kissing, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 17:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14001063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblealice/pseuds/noblealice
Summary: "Lucy’s life is on fast-forward, she’s sure of it. One moment she’s ready to explode the Mothership and the next she’s back in the Lifeboat."From Lucy's return (in 2x01) to their next mission, where Wyatt and Lucy are hiding in close quarters while Rittenhouse searches for them.





	Like A Lover Undone

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from The Decemberists' "I'll Be Your Girl". Unbeta'd, all errors are my own.

Lucy’s life is on fast-forward, she’s sure of it. One moment she’s ready to explode the Mothership and the next she’s back in the Lifeboat, back hugging Jiya, Agent Christopher, and even Mason. She walks around in a daze, failing to really take in her new surroundings. She’s given new clothes and shown to where she’ll be staying, a tiny bed crammed in a too-small room that would maybe trigger her claustrophobia if she weren’t still so raw - every nerve ending feels frayed and exposed.

Wyatt’s been following her around, making sure she doesn’t wander off and now that she’s in someone else’s sweats he tries to joke about a homecoming she never expected.

She’s brutally honest with him in a way that feels all too comfortable and new at the same time. This man has seen her kill before and he doesn’t flinch away from her now but the question about her mother is the proverbial straw and she crumples into his embrace.

They’re interrupted by Jiya and she can’t help but be briefly relieved. What if advancing their relationship changed how well they work together in the field? Lucy regrets her clumsy attempts at intimacy and feels every awkward inch of her body. She tries not to stare at Wyatt as he leads her to the others.

She blinks and the next thing she knows, she’s telling them the name of the soldier that was rescued. Four identical expressions face her and at least it’s no longer a mixture of wariness and pity, but right now everyone looks _scared_.

Rufus breaks the uneasy silence, “Lucy, these plans, this manifesto….Nicholas Keynes _wrote it_.”

Agent Christopher pulls out a chair, “I think it’s time we de-brief you about the time you spent with your mother.”

If her life was sped up before, now it slows down to the pace of molasses in winter. She tells them about all the speeches she had to listen to, how the people working there are zealots who really believe in this new world they are constructing with themselves at the helm. Her voice goes hoarse talking about how she had to earn her mother’s trust, by hiding all her emotions and how she practiced lying to herself into the mirror.

She doesn’t tell them about the newspaper article she slipped into her pocket and hid in her room. She doesn’t mention the nights she spent crying herself to sleep. She never gives a voice to her heart; which would probably emit more of a cry of anguish than any coherent thought.

Finally, after what feels like years, Agent Christopher closes her notepad and stands up.“Okay, if that’s everything, Wyatt can show you around the rest of the bunker.”

Her next words jump out of her mouth before her brain has time to process them. “Wait, before you leave, I need you to read in a doctor.”

Wyatt’s eyebrows shoot up. “Are you hurt? You never said anything--”

“I’m,” she catches herself before she says that she’s fine; after six weeks of it, she’s tired of lying. “….I’m talking about a psychiatrist or therapist. Someone I can talk to about everything that’s happened.”

“I told you the first time you asked that--”

“That it was too much risk. I remember. But back then, Flynn was our biggest obstacle at the time, now we’re working out of an underground shelter against a ruthlessly organized and well-funded terrorist organization. Breaking a federal gag order isn’t the worst thing that can happen in a day.”

“Lucy, the number of people who know about the Lifeboat is in the dozens. We can’t afford to brief someone on time travel just so that you have someone to talk to. For all we know they could be a Rittenhouse agent”.

“It’s more than just having someone to talk to. You need us performing at our best and the things you ask us to do….the things we’ve seen and been complicit to….I just…. _please_ , Denise, can you at least try?”

Lucy can tell that Wyatt is practically bristling with curiousity but she can’t focus on the questions she knows he wants to ask right now. She’s holding her breath while waiting for Agent Christopher to come to some decision and she thinks she might faint if the other woman deliberates much longer.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.” She lets out a giant breath and relaxes her fingers from where they were clenched tight.

Wyatt waits for the room to empty before turning his gaze back to Lucy. He pauses for a moment before deciding on something and giving her a lopsided grin. “What now? Still want that tour? I can show you the best place for a nap, which you’ll need, because those beds are _not_ comfortable.”

She’s so grateful that he’s letting this go that she lets out a girlish snort. He’s trying his best to put her at ease after a hard day and she desperately wants to follow him out the door and laugh at more of his dumb jokes. It would be easy to do, almost as easy as kissing him. She wants to seek out more comfort from this man, except...

A chill races down her back and she remembers what Emma said. Her smile fades and she stares at her loaned shoes.

“I think that I need to properly grieve for Amy. All this time I told myself that she could be brought back but--” a sob escapes her and she clutches Wyatt’s arm, which is suddenly around her.

Her knees give out next and they fold to the ground together. There’s a buzzing in her ears from the stress and the pain. She feels everything at a distance, the warm sensation of a hand stroking her hair is muffled by the heartache and she can barely hear Wyatt whispering “I’ve got you” over and over like she’s something wild he’s trying to tame.

It’s all too much and she wants to just curl into a ball and pretend the last year of her life never happened. She cries and cries and clutches at his shoulders, looking for something to anchor her to the present when all she wants is to travel back to a time when her family wasn’t so complicated; when she wouldn’t hesitate to say that her mother loved her above all else.

 

 

\-----

  


Lucy wakes up in an unfamiliar bed with a lumpy mattress and a scratchy blanket. Her eyes are sore and her throat is dry but at least someone thought to remove her shoes before tucking her in.

There’s no window to give her a sense of time and she can’t find a watch among Jiya’s things, although she doesn’t do the best job searching as she tries not to move things around too obviously.

She rights her clothes and drinks the water left on the bedside table for her before exiting the shared room that will most likely be her home until this business is finished. Upon closing the door she startles a bit to see Wyatt shoot up from where he’s been sitting with a deck of cards in the opposite hallway.

He’s clearly been keeping watch and waiting for her to wake up but he doesn’t look ashamed of being busted, just…content.

He smiles brightly before taking on a more somber look, like he’s just reminded himself of something.

It’s a lot to process and she wishes she could talk to that therapist right now about the way he makes her feel. She’d like an expert’s opinion on whether her feelings toward Wyatt are a terrible adrenaline-fueled mess of hormones and if she’s reckless to go out on missions with all their unresolved tension.

In the meantime, she’ll have to settle for asking Jiya about it.

“I’m glad you’re awake. I can show you the shower if you want but I think I overheard Rufus talking about Keynes, they may have a lead.”

She bites down on her lip, unsure of how to react to the emotion in his eyes. “Um, I guess we shouldn’t keep them waiting. Lead the way.”

  


\---

  


She’s rubbing her eyes to relieve some of the strain when she decides it’s time for a new cup of coffee. The team is trying to trace past Rittenhouse members with their current counterparts using Ethan Cahill’s research but the genealogies are spotty. Sometimes relatives just appear on a document or marriage license without an established date of birth. Weirder still, some of them appear to be lacking obituaries or death certificates, like they vanished into thin air. It’s making for some tricky investigating but she feels like she’s on the cusp of a breakthrough.

Rufus and Wyatt find her in the makeshift kitchen of their little base of operations, while she’s pondering these questions.

Rufus takes the coffee out of her hands and waits her out, not giving it back until she makes eye contact. “Hey, you’ve been working really hard. Why not play a hand of cards with us? It’ll give you something to distract you while Mason and Jiya are working on the next coordinates.”

“I’m not in the mood, guys.”

Rufus pipes up, “Okay, how about we add something to the pot. More than money.”

“I don’t feel like gambling.”

“Nothing that’ll cost you anything. Just conversation. You’re the one who wanted us to talk more, so let’s talk.” Rufus looks at her like he’s so proud of making such a compelling point that she almost capitulates.

Instead, she straightens her spine, bringing herself up to her full five feet four inches. “You know this isn’t what I meant.”

“Yeah, but until Agent Christopher signs off on it, we’re all that we’ve got. We’ll keep the conversation light, something silly to lighten the mood. We can start with the loser at cards has to tell an embarrassing story about themselves.”

She pauses, considering their offer. She feels like she hasn’t laughed in months despite only being underground for a few days. Maybe it would be nice to take a break from her research for an hour.

Wyatt seems to sense her hesitation and he tries to tempt her further with a his puppy dog eyes, “What about two truths and a lie?”

She crinkles her face into a sour expression without meaning to. “I feel like I’ve lied enough for four lifetimes.”

Rufus jumps back in, elbowing past Wyatt lest the other man ruin all the progress he’s made. “Then we do three truths. But one of them still has to be embarrassing.”

“I…” It’s a reckless decision, but she knows the second her brain makes it that it’s the right one. “Y’know what? Okay.”

Thirty minutes later and she’s glad she caved. Rufus has already admitted to wetting the bed when he was seven and with the way she’s been cleaning up tricks, she’s pretty sure that Wyatt is going to have to confess something soon.

"What? How’d you get two sevens?” He throws his cards down in disgust. “Ugh, fine, I know when I’m beat. One: I got the youngest guy in my squad to qualify for the expert marksmanship badge.”

He pastes on a smug smile in response to Rufus’, “That’s weak, man.”

“Two: I learned German from my grandmother but I learned Spanish for Bella Diaz in Sophomore year. Three: I was--.”

The crackle in the speakers tells them an announcement is coming and they wait for a few seconds in silence for Mason’s voice to boom out into every room, telling them that the computer has just picked up another jump, this time to Minneapolis in 1973.

“Guess we’ll have to finish this later.”

In the commotion of trying to find period appropriate clothing, worrying over how she normally acts around Wyatt and attempting to guess Rittenhouse’s motives, Lucy forgets all about the game.

  


\---

 

 

That is, she forgets about it until she’s pressed up against Wyatt and trying her hardest not to breathe too loudly. They are smashed together between a wall and a standing wardrobe and Emma was hot on their heels when they dashed into this house looking for cover.

In such close contact, she can smell his now familiar-to-her scent, but something’s changed that she can’t pinpoint. Perhaps the military soap from the bunker has added a gentle spice. She finds she likes it.

Wyatt finishes twisting on his silencer before leaning out a fraction to fire a shot from the open window next to them. When he returns, he backs into her even more, forcing her further into the darkness and shielding her body with his.

She’s absurdly grateful for that marksmanship badge right about now because she has no idea how they’ll ever be able to make their retreat with three Rittenhouse agents outside.

After a minute, he turns to face her, “That was the last of my ammo. I think they’re going to search the house. When someone comes close enough, we push the wardrobe on top of them and run east. If we’re lucky they left a person manning the front and back entrance, leaving the library window open. We can make it if we’re fast.”

Lucy hears the murmurs of conversation and then simple barked orders. They were to be found and killed on sight. Her hands start to shake and Wyatt wraps them up in his own. He’s looking down at her with such intensity she feels it down to her toes. She forgets all the awkwardness from before and the questions that were swirling through her mind on whether this is the wisest course of action. She loves him in this moment and can’t go another second without telling him.

The sounds in the house come from below. Someone is searching for them in the basement and overturning what sound like heavy furniture.

She mouths more than whispers the words, her breath is so shaky. “One: I played bass guitar in that band”.

He quirks his head and holsters his spent gun, “Lucy…?”

“My truths. I have to get them out. Please?” He goes back to rubbing warmth back into her hands and she’s sure that one ear is paying attention to the commotion outside but equally sure that half of him is listening intently.

“Two: I liked when you kissed me in the farmhouse.” A grin tugs on his face, revealing his dimples and she loves that she can make him smile at a time like this.

“Three...” she falters, this one a bit harder to get out.

“Let me go first. I never got to finish my third truth.” His voice is all throaty and hot against her temple. It makes her want to push up and comb through his hair but she locks her knees and tucks some loose strands of her own hair behind her ear in an effort to steel herself.

“No, I need to say this.” The noises are still coming from the basement so she lets some emotion leak into her voice. “Three: my life lately has been a wholly complicated mess but you make things feel simple. You make it easy to trust you, to need you. I’m scared of losing you. It almost broke me before. I don’t think I could do it again.”

His hands frame her face and he kisses her, it’s different from before; he’s less hesitant and she can press her whole body up against his. He moves one hand to cup the back of her head, tilting her mouth into a better position.

His body is firm beneath her hands as they slide up and across his chest to grab at his shoulders and Wyatt deepens the kiss, slowly and with skill. One of his hands slips down to her hip and curves  around her waist and she tries not to make a noise of pleasure as he continues to melt her bones ith his tongue. It’s an unhurried kiss, despite the circumstances, and she wants it to last forever.

She’s breathless when he moves his lips along her jaw and up to nip at her ear before whispering, “Lucy, get ready to run.”

At first she has no idea what he’s talking about, but then the sound of footsteps making their way toward them get louder and she has to concentrate on breathing in through her nose to calm herself enough to think rationally. They have a plan. She’s to go east and meet up with Rufus. If they follow the plan things will be alright.

  


\---

  


They abandoned the plan halfway through because of a damn trip wire in the woods and things are definitely not alright.

But Wyatt is still holding her hand as they walk quickly through the crowded streets to their second rendezvous point and when he brings her fingers up to his lips it forces all traces of hopelessness away.

She’s unsure if they can win this current battle but when he looks at her like that, she finds her faith that they will win the war restored.

**Author's Note:**

> For inspiration I looked up a few Trope Bingo cards, but geez, this show has already done SO MANY in canon. All we need is a coffee shop AU and some Sex Pollen and the show will have a BINGO! This was originally written for 'Truth and Dare' but I don't know if this still counts.


End file.
